News in from World Village : Just over 20 years on from her album, Ghazals, Najma Akhtar has never really been away. As well as seven albums in her own name, she's been collaborating with Jah Wobble, Page and Plant, Andy Summers, Steve Coleman, Apache Indian, La Cucina, Jethro Tull and the Sundae club.
Najma Akhtar, further demonstrates her flexibility and creativity with her latest project. Rock guitarist,bluesman and all round axe master, Gary Lucas, inspired by her ethereal vocals on the track, 'The Battle of Evermore' from the Jimmy Page and Robert Plant album No Quarter, came up with the music to which Najma supplied the words. The result is their first album Rishte in the process a beautiful and curious transformation has occurred.
Out of this chrysalis of expectation has burst a butterfly whose wings drip psychedelic jewels
There is blues in the mix - in particular the eerie revival of the Skip James classic Special Rider Blues (Gary’s also a Beefheart alumnus) and there’s Indian music too, as expected (both Daaya and Parda are based on Ghazal styles). Out of this chrysalis of expectation has burst a butterfly whose wings drip psychedelic jewels. A dark and heady funk and fey folk evocations jostle in the powerful title track and a powerful pop sensibility underpins everything.
It would be easy to apply simplistic marketing jargon to the music of Rishte. Indo-Blues fusion, east-meets-west and the like. But this is to misunderstand the alchemy that occurred when Gary met Najma - a rare confluence of interests, talents and cosmic synchronicities that have produced an album which is truly more than the sum of its parts a unique and pungent fusion.
